How E-commerce used Technology to provide livelihood during a Pandemic
The year 2020 has not been kind. Especially to the weaker economic sections of our society.
Uman Sayyed, a 19-year-old from Mumbai, was awaiting his exam results when his brother, the sole earning member of the family, went jobless. With an immediate need to support his livelihood, he started looking for work in April — the peak of the nationwide lockdown. The odds, to say the least, were stacked against Uman.
The job hunt ended in July 2020 when he signed up as a delivery executive for an ecommerce major.
“I feel relieved that I will finally be able to support my family. This is a tough time for all of us”, said Uman.
Rajesh Kumar, a street food vendor and father of two children, also had a similar journey. His savings were almost exhausted when he finally got the job of delivering packages for a few hours everyday. He says that with this money he will be able to keep his family afloat for a few months before finding a more permanent solution.
Soon after the country went into lockdown, the industry realised that the winds of change will make people more reliant on e-commerce and home delivery than before. Our client, the biggest e-commerce company in the world, also started making plans to ramp-up their delivery partner network. There was, however, one important hurdle to overcome.
The lockdown and social distancing requirements had made the conventional ‘Onboarding Centre Model’ obsolete. No longer could companies crowd their onboarding centres with job aspirants. They also had to ensure that the process was still efficient as prospective delivery partners want to get onboard and start earning immediately. A quick turnaround time (TAT) was important to keep drop offs in check.
The situation was ripe for a technology-led disruption.
Zero Touch Onboarding
The e-commerce major used our remote onboarding solution — Zero Touch Onboarding — that takes the onboarding process on to a live video call.
Aspiring Delivery Partners (DPs) connect to a live video call with our agents. On the call, the agent confirms their identity (documents and FaceMatch) and current location (digital location capture). The application is then passed to the Background Verification team that does a few more checks including court record check, database check and physical address verification..
In parallel, the aspirant is put through a training module for onboarding. Online training was designed such that the DPs could choose a convenient slot and complete it from their home.
When all checks are completed successfully, the aspirant is onboarded without ever visiting an onboarding facility or centre. The next day he is ready to deliver his first package.
Related: 2.5x Increase in Lead Conversions with Zero Touch Onboarding
The Impact
We helped our client onboard 90,000 delivery partners in the 2 months leading up to Diwali.
Most of all, though, 90,000 desperate families found a source of income during a once-in-a-century pandemic. All it needed was a vision combined with the technology to achieve that vision.
If you want to onboard people remotely, at scale in realtime, please write to shivani@idfy.com
More information on www.idfy.com
